


Best To Let Sleeping Dragons Lie

by afteriwake



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angry Khan, Backstory, Betrayal, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Plotting Khan, Pre-Star Trek: Into Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-14 21:25:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5759422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the moment he's awoken till the moment he puts his plan into action, Khan Noonien Singh has one singular thought in his mind: he never should have been awoken, and those who thought to manipulate him into doing their bidding will suffer. Greatly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreenSkyOverMe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenSkyOverMe/gifts).



> So this was another fic that is being written for the lovely **GreenSkyOverMe** , who had asked for Khan backstory since she knows I enjoy writing the character in my Star Trek: AOS/Sherlock/Doctor Who series. It's going to be very interesting writing him in a canon characterization, I think, and I can't wait to see if I rise to the challenge!

The last few memories he had had been of his crew. The memories had flitted through his mind as he had been in his cryogenic slumber, and now, as he was trying to get his wits about him, get his senses straight upon being so suddenly awoken from what he had expected to be his unending slumber, they were flitting through his mind once again. Their faces, their voices, bits and pieces of conversations and snatches of moments that they had shared…they cycled through his mind as he shivered in the cold, dark room he was in.

He had no clue where he was, when he was…no clue of anything. All he knew was that he had woken up suddenly on a bed in a dark room with a single light on. He had found a way to break the light easily as it was too bright for his overly sensitive eyes, and he had found it better that way. The room seemed far too cold, or perhaps that was him. Normally temperature did not matter to him, but he supposed it was his body still adjusting to having been cryogenically frozen. There were bars on the door and windows, and the bare minimum inside the room.

Whatever the situation, though, he was well aware of one thing: he was a prisoner.

However, he was not entirely powerless. He needed to remember that.

When the first visitor arrived, they were not there to offer answers. They were there to get information. By any means necessary, apparently. And his silence could buy him time. He had extraordinary healing powers; he could endure any beating that a mere mortal could deliver. He could be beaten nearly to death and still survive, though he hoped that it didn’t get to that point. He knew when the beatings got severe enough they would realize his healing ability was superhuman, but for now it was his ace in the hole.

He endured it with near silence. A stray grunt or groan escaped, much to his dismay, but otherwise he managed to stay absolutely quiet as he was pummeled by someone he gathered was an expert in extracting answers from uncooperative subjects. It made him wonder as to the when he had been woken up in; how much had the future change, if torture was still allowed? How civilized were men these days if pummeling a man to get answers was the first route to be taken?

Or perhaps they knew who he was and it was decided this was the safest route. Perhaps his name had lived on in infamy. The name Khan Noonien Singh had lived on as a name to be feared, and the way to treat the man who bore that name was with aggression. If that was the case, then so be it. It was a well deserved legacy, and when the time came for him to get his vengeance, this treatment would be remembered.

Because he would, indeed, get his vengeance.

He wasn’t sure how long it had been that it all went on, how many times he was visited, how many times he was struck in their quest for answers. And then, it simply ceased. He was left in peace for a time. Part of him knew this was a ploy, a way to get him to trust the next person who came to call, but part of him also wondered if they had simply realized the futility of their actions. He would not bend, he would not break. He was not a weak willed man. He would not cave because his body was battered and bruised, so long as his spirit was strong.

And so when the man arrived, looking at him as though he was a curious byproduct of a time gone by, he kept his temper down. This man had power, he realized before the man said a word. He could tell by the uniform the man wore, by the manner in which he moved, the manner in which he held himself. He had done well by holding himself out for this man.

“Khan Noonien Singh,” the man drawled out. The way the man said his voice grated on his nerves but he knew he would have to accept it if he wanted a chance at freedom, a chance at answers.

He nodded. “Yes,” he replied, nodding his head.

The man looked him over from his standing by the door. He had been sitting up, his elbows on his thighs, his hands clasped together. He had made it a point not to get into an adversarial stance; he could manipulate people just as easily as he could bash a person’s head in and sometimes knowing when to do so made all the difference. After a moment he spoke again. “I apologize for the actions of my subordinates. You have a…reputation.”

He nodded again. “I suppose I should have known,” he said quietly.

“You left quite a path of destruction in your wake when you were awake last time,” he said, crossing his arms and smirking slightly, as if he didn’t quite believe he’d actually done it, like he wasn’t _quite_ capable of it. This man was irritating, he realized. He acted far more superior than he really should. Whatever position of power he had was really quite high, he realized. High enough he felt like a God among men. Pathetic.

“I suppose it could have been exaggerated, after…?” he said, trailing off.

“Two hundred years,” the man said. “You’ve been in cryogenic stasis for two hundred years.”

He nodded. Well, at least he had gotten one question answered. “That allows for some time for exaggeration, I suppose,” he said.

“Well, I’m rather hoping it’s not exaggeration, you see,” the man said. “If you can look past your welcome to the future, I need your help, Khan. I have a problem, and you might be the man to fix it.”

And there it was. The lure. The invitation to help was the lure to his freedom, and that was supposed to get his undying loyalty. Oh, he was a clod. So simplistic in his gambit. Well, he supposed it wouldn’t hurt to give him something, in exchange from freedom from this prison, at least until he could begin to enact his plans to find and free his crew and then exact his revenge before he began to continue the plans he’d had before, if that was still feasible in this era.

He looked at the man, and then leaned forward more, showing him subconsciously there was interest. Even an idiot could pick up a signal like that. “Tell me more,” he said, hoping that he caught on. And when the man began to give him his pitch, he knew he had him hooked.

Now it was just a matter of seeing how quickly he could learn what had changed and how much information he could gather before he put plans into action. Because he would prove what a mistake it had been to wake him up.

After all, it was usually best to let sleeping dragons lie.


	2. Chapter 2

Lone wolf. 

That was the term that had best been applied to him for so long. Not that he didn’t have relationships of sorts. His crew was his family, of course. They were the only people he fully trusted, the only people he would willingly give his life for. For them, he would do anything, endure any hardship, put up with any inconvenience, no matter how great. He would let himself be the pawn in a game to get the chance to free them, if that was what it took.

This man trying to so clumsily play him like a chess piece on the board? He would crush his skull or snap his spine just as easily as he would take his next breath if it meant getting them back. But he couldn’t let the man see it. He had to let Alexander Marcus, as he had been told the man’s name was, think he was a lone wolf. To think that the men and women of his crew were merely that: crew. To think that the records of his time were just slightly exaggerated, as most of the people of this era thought his exploits were. If Marcus believed they were nothing to him, as everyone else he had met so far had, then that was good because they would not be held for ransom above his head.

Not that he had met many of the people involved in this elaborate scheme of Marcus’s. He was still kept in his cell for the most part as the fiction of his persona was being crafted. Marcus said it would take time, that it was a tricky thing, that it needed to fool Starfleet Command.

Marcus took him for an imbecile, apparently.

He knew that Marcus just wanted him sequestered away from the general public while he was force fed knowledge enough to adapt. After all, the fiction would fall apart if John Harrison, as he was to be called, couldn’t fit neatly into this era. If John Harrison was a square peg in a round hole than Marcus’s grand schemes would all come apart at the seams, and that couldn’t be allowed to happen, could it?

No, of course not.

He tired of all this, though. He tired of being a prisoner and longed for some semblance of freedom, even if it was only an illusory form. He knew even if he was John Harrison there would always be eyes on him, monitoring his every move. He was an asset to Marcus, nothing more than that. A tool in an arsenal. A sledgehammer to be used against “hostile” types. The type of beings that he once would have been classified as.

The irony did not escape him.

He was biding his time. Eventually he would broach the subject of his crew, barter a way for them to gain their freedom. Even if they were in indentured servitude, perhaps they could build some semblance of a life for themselves here. It could be…something. Perhaps once they had achieved what Marcus wanted, they could be given a ship, allowed to leave.

Doubtful, but it was a possibility.

Or they could take it by force. He wasn’t above retaliating against his captors. If blood needed to be shed, even if it was innocent blood, so be it. Not that there was that much innocent blood that he could see. Everyone that he was interacting with was going against the basic tenants of Starfleet, as far as he could surmise. Making military preparations in secret…he wondered what the world would say to that, how Alexander Marcus would bear up to the scrutiny. That could certainly be excellent revenge if he didn’t think Marcus would use his golden tongue and weasel his way out of it.

No, if he was going to get his revenge, then his hands would be dirty by the end of it, and blood would be spilt. But it could wait for the time being. For now, it was time to learn what all had passed in two hundred years’ slumber. To learn what had changed, what had brought the world to peace and then back to the brink of war again. To make a man want to uproot what seemed like utopia.

Because knowledge of one’s enemies was more powerful than brute strength. It was a lesson he had learned well, a lesson he had put to his advantage many times in the past. A lesson that Marcus did not realize he was playing directly into and, hopefully, would lead to his downfall.

Yes, he was being underestimated by the clod of a commander.

Pity it would be the last thing Marcus did if he had anything to say about it.


	3. Chapter 3

He knew it was to be a long time before he was to be allowed into public, but the fact that he wasn't allowed out into the world at all grated on him. His every waking moment was spent behind four walls, and the only glimpses he had of the outside world were either through photographs of things he had to burn the knowledge of into his brain, holograms that he had to interact with so he could learn about the world at large or, all too fleetingly, glimpses through barred windows when he was given just a few moments to himself.

His own cell, for that was what his room was, full of modern comforts for him to learn to use though it was, had no windows. They wanted there to be no means of escape. He had no idea when it was light or dark outside, and his lack of need for sleep did not help matters. He could go days on a mere five hours of rest due to his supreme physiology, but part of him still longed to feel the sun on his face or see the stars he had traveled among for many years. They were needs he could not explain and wouldn’t bother to try to explain to Marcus.

Marcus thought he was a benevolent captor, and he supposed compared to those he had dealt with before his exile there was some truth to that. Though he was housed in a cell he had a small modicum of freedom, but the plain fact of it all was that he was still a captor. His choice of movements was not his own, his time was not his own, his day to day experiences were not his own. And not only was he a prisoner, but he was a tool in whatever this grand scheme that Marcus had in his head was. He was the tool used to design grand warships and elaborate weapons, all while his crew was held over his head.

He had not seen them once since he had been awoken. All he had was Marcus’s word that they were still in optimal health for being in cryogenic stasis, and he was not entirely sure he could trust the man’s word. Not that Marcus had given him a reason to outright distrust him, but he was sure he would sacrifice all that was dear to him for his dream of conquest to come to fruition. Most would think Khan was similar, but he was not. He had principles, had morals, twisted though some may find them. Marcus had none as far as he could tell.

That made him dangerous. He had to tread lightly, tread more carefully than he would care to.

And so he bided his time, learned what he needed to, played the role of puppet as John Harrison. Crafted the weaponry and ships. Did as he was told and kept his head down and his rage in check. It was what he needed to do to survive, and wasn’t that a familiar situation for him? That was what he had done while he had received his punishment before. That was what he had done while he had tried to keep his crew alive when they were the hunted, the exiled. He had done what was in their best interest before, he could do it again, no matter how much it grated upon him.

But in the privacy of his cell, when all was quiet and he was sure the world at large was asleep, even if he could not tell for sure, he plotted. He began planning revenge, taking what he knew of this time, this new situation he was in, the bits and piece that were fed to him by force, and shaped them into plans. He had plans and contingency plans and then contingency plans for those. He had elaborate plans and simple plans, he had ones that involved razing the world as a whole and ones that involved wiping Starfleet off the map. His personal favorites involved making Admiral Alexander Marcus pay personally for every slight, every humiliation he had had to bear since being brought out from his slumber, having every beating that had been delivered before he had met the man being given back to him tenfold and watching the light drain out of his eyes as he begged for mercy before he walked over his cold, lifeless corpse to rescue his crew.

That was usually the most pleasant of plans that he would think of before he sunk into slumber when he had need to.

He was not a good man, as most of his captors knew. But oh, if they had known the extent of just _how_ not good he was, perhaps they would be more careful around him. Perhaps they would be more respectful, more conscientious. More careful. Because he could snap arms and legs and backs and necks as easily as twigs and yet he held back because he had things of his own to accomplish: rescue his family, get them to safety, get them to freedom.

Then watch the world burn for what it had allowed Admiral Marcus to do to him and to them.


	4. Chapter 4

“Your levels of productivity are not high enough.”

He grit his teeth at the sound of Alexander Marcus’s voice to his back. He had gotten some time to himself, thankfully, after hours of drafting plans and some brief moments of actually being allowed to leave the facility to see other people who were not strictly relegated to the facility. For a few brief moments he had felt the sun on his face and the wind in his hair because it had been assumed he was docile enough not to be a risk for escape, so they had not transported him in some underground part of the facility. He had taken those all too brief moments and firmly locked them in his mind to replay when he got some privacy, and now Marcus was intruding on that hard earned privacy and it grated on him.

“When I am not allowed to leave the facility without heavy guard, it impedes my ability to supervise,” he said, his tone civil, even quite urbane, when really he wanted to speak as though he was talking to a child or an imbecile. There really was only so much he could do from this prison and the facilities here. He needed to be allowed a certain modicum of freedom and such if Marcus’s ploy was to succeed. Didn’t the oaf realize that? Most likely not. He wanted utter control over every aspect of the situation and thus he only looked at the immediate situation and the short term future. Marcus was not intelligent enough to _really_ look at long term goals.

“If you’re given that much freedom you’ll be a flight risk,” Marcus said, the volume of his voice rising.

He felt a vein pop just a little at how completely imbecilic Marcus was. Oh, if he had any vague illusions of his plan working, really, he needed to think much farther ahead than he was. He knew the John Harrison identity was fully crafted and put into place; he had used it today. It had worked well enough. He had passed muster amongst those he had interacted with, though it had helped that he had appeared cold and imperious and rather aloof, and no one thought to question him much. He was careful not to come off as an arse; he needed these subordinates to trust him, and they could warm to him later, in some measure, but for the first encounter he needed to come off as superior to give the impression that he was, in fact, their superior. Should he need to make adjustments to his demeanor he would, slightly. But the sense of superiority was tantamount.

Marcus would never understand how to skillfully manipulate people though. Smooth as he thought he was at the game of playing people, Marcus was a novice while he was clearly light years ahead.

Khan turned slowly, giving the impression of boredom. He knew this would further irritate Marcus, but it was needed. He needed to show that Marcus was the novice in this chess match he was playing and he was the master. “If I am not allowed complete freedom of movement, the subordinates I was introduced to today will know I am a prisoner,” he said, speaking slowly. “If they know I am a prisoner, they will not trust me. They will not respect me. They will look to those guarding me for guidance, and to be frank, the men you have set guarding me know nothing about the intricacies of what you want me to do. If you expect me to give you the war you want so dearly with those who are causing you a threat, you must give me the semblance of freedom, at the very least.”

He could see Marcus’s eyebrow twitch and his jaw set. He wasn’t used to be talked down to. Oh, he really did think he was some sort of God amongst men, or at least among those in Starfleet. He was used to having his every word praised, his every command obeyed, and not being contradicted. Not being challenged.

He was woefully under prepared for what was going to happen because his plans were so underdeveloped they were useless. Marcus had asked for his help and now he had the audacity to say productivity was not up to his schedule? If his schedule was not so implausible it would be laughable. He knew he was right; Marcus didn’t need to like it, he just needed to accept it.

“And if you leave?” Marcus spat out.

“I have no reason to leave,” he said, leaving off the ‘at the moment’ that he had wanted to add, knowing it would only make Marcus more surly. “Right now, there is more to my advantage to remain working for you and your project than to attempt escape.”

Marcus studied him carefully, his eyes narrowing, as if he was trying to figure out whether he was bluffing or not. It was truth with some bluff; at the moment it was to his advantage to stay. So long as he had no sign of his crew, no physical sign that they were well and in no harm, it was in his best interest to allow himself to be trotted out and shown off and put to work for Marcus like a good little slave. Once he had confirmation that his crew was safe, then the plans in his head could begin to be set in motion and he could begin plotting his escape, their release, and his revenge.

But for now, he needed some modicum of freedom. He needed to learn his way around this city, get more information, interact with the underlings assigned to him to pick likely targets. And for that, freedom was a necessity.

Finally, Marcus nodded. “You’ll have your freedom, Khan. But mark my words: put one toe out of line, and you won’t be the only one who pays.” Marcus turned then and shut the door behind him.

Only then did he allow the smallest amount of fear to enter his heart. Marcus was a cold-blooded bastard. He knew this for fact now. He would sacrifice members of his crew if he visibly put any of his plans into action. Very well, then.

It was time to see how good a mask he could wear when dealing with those around him.


	5. Chapter 5

His freedom was precious, he knew that. It rode on the backs of those he truly cared for, and he was loathe to risk it with foolish and reckless actions. So he was careful as to what he did with it. He was not foolish to believe he was not still under heavy surveillance. But at least now he was no longer housed in a cell. He had proper housing now, though he could spot any number of hidden cameras and he had no doubt that at any given moment men would come in and search the place if they even _suspected_ he was doing anything that would go against Marcus’s carefully ordered plans.

So he kept it all in his head. Not a jot was written down; there was no scrap of information written anywhere of the vengeance that boiled in his veins, at his plots to rescue his crew from Marcus’s clutches and rain down bloody revenge on Starfleet.

But he took advantage of this freedom to more steadily observe those under his command, to see who he could more readily use as pawns in his game of vengeance. To see who he could more easily manipulate. To see who had the weakest weak points and who would be the easiest to exploit. He could play a long game better than Marcus; Marcus’s thirst for war short-sighted him and would lead him to make costly mistakes, to underestimate those around him.

To underestimate people like him.

Marcus thought he had him in a muzzle and a leash and that was partly true; to the world at large; John Harrison was domesticated, a competent officer of Starfleet. And he would play that role as long as it suited his needs. But when the time was right, the muzzle and leash would come off and Marcus would be the first to feel his teeth on his throat. And he would never see it coming.

He started his plans by adjusting the diagnostics for the missiles. It was simple to pull off, really; no one questioned such highly sophisticated plans, even those who were supposedly the most knowledgeable of this time. Once he found where his crew was being held he could easily slip their pods into the missiles and then find a way to load them onto one of the ships, and then when the times was right, steal the ship and destroy the Kelvin library, destroy Starfleet, and escape.

The plan was simple. Nearly foolproof.

Nearly, however, was not the same as completely, and he had to make sure it was completely foolproof.

And that was why he needed to find the person who would be able to wreak his bloody revenge should he fail completely, or should it not go quite to plan.

Because Marcus needed to pay for threatening those nearest and dearest to him in all ways possible, and destroying his dream of a war with the hostile aliens of this universe seemed the perfect way to do that.


	6. Chapter 6

Thomas Harewood.

Of all of the personnel at the base under the Kelvin Memorial Archive, Harewood had the biggest button to push to coerce his help with his plans. A daughter with a “mysterious” ailment at Royal Children’s Hospital, currently comatose, no sign of recovery. The stress was wearing on him, and he could tell from conversations he had with fellow coworkers that there was tension between him and his wife that could soon erupt into something more vicious. Not physical violence, no. Harewood was not a violent man. But it could be cause for separation, for more of the pulling away that was already beginning to happen, and slowly but surely the loss of his child and his wife would tear a man such as Harewood apart. The thought of giving his daughter and wife a life with each other, even potentially at the cost of his own, would be an offer he would not refuse.

But he would hold that in reserve in case the plans to smuggle his crew backfired. That was still the predominant plan, to sneak them into the missiles he was designing and to smuggle them aboard some craft and take them to safety. If that was a feasible option, then he would do so and take them far away while he resuscitated them safely, in a better way then he had been. Then, when they were able to, they would come back and wreak bloody vengeance on Starfleet, and he would go toe to toe against Marcus personally for the sleights against him.

Until then, he would, as Marcus so often said, “toe the line.” Keep his head down, keep his nose to the grindstone, churn out plans and weaponry and work on the grand ship for him, the USS Vengeance. A fitting name for the Dreadnaught class ship he hoped to liberate for his own needs, should it be completed in time. For vengeance is what he craved. He craved it with every fiber of his being, with every drop of his blood, with every ounce of his will. It was only with immense willpower that he kept himself in check, knowing the time was not right.

He had the patience of a saint, sinner that he was.

Marcus, however, did not, and his demands grew increasingly outlandish. For a man who had a fleet of some of the finest minds this world and many others had to offer under him, he had no idea how to let them work at a pace that would guarantee results. He tried to explain that you cannot manufacture the types of weaponry and technology to beat races who had spent the time that Starfleet had spent on peaceful endeavours conquering planets so quickly, but Marcus never seemed to listen. It was all he could to to keep his temper in check, knowing his crew’s safety depended on it. This man had threatened to destroy their cryotubes already; he could not give Marcus a reason to.

But it was all he could do to simply bend.

One day, perhaps soon, he would snap.

And then all hell would break loose.


	7. Chapter 7

It had been a delicate matter of timing. It had all led up to a matter of a few critical hours, to slip the cryogenic pods into the missiles that would be put aboard the USS Vengeance. A job that would have needed to be done by more than one person if they were not superhuman. A job that he trusted to no one else.

Getting those few critical hours had been harder than he had expected. He had found himself under slightly closer scrutiny, and he was worried his plans had been discovered. Therefore he tread more carefully, made it look as though he were abandoning his plans, and changed his tactics. Began the switching out of the missiles interiors with the pods in small batches when time would allow. It was easier to get thirty minutes of time to himself when he was unobserved and tamper with a missile or two than do all of them at once. Less conspicuous as well.

Or so he had thought.

Not all of those beneath him were loyal, he had discovered when Marcus arrived at the Kelvin Memorial Archive with a small platoon of the crewman who would be manning the Vengeance. They were not ordinary Starfleet soldiers; in the time he was from, they would have been the men he had faced off against, the ones sent to wipe him off the face of the Earth. They did not care for Starfleet’s mission of peace and exploration. No, they cared for blood and fighting.

And he knew, then, with a sinking heart that the seventy-two crew members he had managed to smuggle into the shells of the missiles would, perhaps, be safe.

The twenty-eight he had not would be lost to him for good.

He stood by stoically as two of the soon to be crew held him, arms bound behind him, and made him watch as each cryopod was battered and destroyed, the lives within them snuffed out as they were not brought to consciousness first, as they were not allowed the chance to acclimate. They were snuffed out as easily as a candle was snuffed out to leave a room in complete darkness, and each time he felt a part of his heart break.

He also felt each broken part harden into steel and glow burning hot with hatred for the man who stood across from him, staring impassively at the actions of his subordinates as they carried out the task he had laid out before them.

Twenty-eight lives taken in mere minutes that seemed like an eternity. Twenty-eight friends lost.

Twenty-eight reasons to make everyone who had caused him pain to suffer a million injuries, a million cuts to their skins, a million painful burns, a million deaths.

When it was done, Marcus walked up to him, looking at the rest of the missiles. Then he turned to him and stared at him as if he was nothing. “Your services are no longer needed, Harrison,” he said in that offhanded manner that so grated on his nerves.

He was being casually dismissed, as if he was nothing, after he had done everything to set Marcus up on this pedestal that he had so badly wanted, where he could hold court over the universe as Starfleet knew it. Rule like a God if he so chose. Well, pedestals could come crashing down. 

And he would make sure Marcus’s did.


	8. Chapter 8

He knew that was not the end of his surveillance. If anything, the noose around his neck only got tighter. He had only the merest semblance of freedom; there were eyes and ears everywhere, keeping tabs on him.

But he didn’t care.

His blood boiled with hatred towards the act that had been committed against his family, the callous way their lives had been taken. He worried for those that were left but he knew that there was no way to see what was done with them now; he had no allies left in Starfleet, only enemies and pawns. And now was the time to move the pawns he had so carefully studied to make his move toward ultimate payback. He would not fail this time. He would not let Marcus take away his revenge as he had taken away his chance at freedom for him and his crew. He deserved death, and yet he deserved so much more, and if it was the last thing he did he would personally deliver an end to Marcus, so help him.

It had not been hard to slip the eyes and ears for a few scant hours, but he had to time things well. He couldn’t observe Harewood with constant vigilance or else his plan would be given away, as had the plan to swap his family out in the missiles. That had been his failure and he would have to live with it for the rest of his life. So he had to be crafty in how he tracked Harewood’s movements. How he spent his time away from Starfleet.

When he saw his daughter.

Fortunately, Harewood was a man of habit, it seemed, and the visits he and his wife took were routine. It did not take long to settle himself among the many people at the hospital, among the well-wishers and the people who were there to grieve and wait. It was a scene familiar to him, in its own way, this place of sadness. It reminded him of the ship his people were on, where they had moments of happiness mixed with great sadness and sorrow once they were exiled, until they sealed themselves in the cryogenic pods in hopes of a better future once they were awoken. 

What a mistake that had been, really. What they had awoken to was the same thing they had had before, a culture that treated them as different, and feared them, and then mistreated them, and then killed them. He had hoped for something different but from day one he had known there was nothing about this future that would not be better unless he made it so. He had just hated to be proven right in the fashion he was.

And then Harewood left his daughter’s room, distraught and tense.

And the trap could be sprung.

Revenge would finally be his.


End file.
